I have neglected my blog of late. In my defence, I have been writing. Well… editing. And painting. Although most of December I had RSV and didn’t do much of anything. 

I feel it’s time for a catch-up. 

On Writing

With the help of my lovely critique partners and beta readers, I have been polishing the final draft of my supernatural mystery novel. Agents like a comparison, so my story is Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London, but set in wild, windswept Cornwall, along with all its uncanny folklore. 

I enjoy the editing process. In the early years, I loathed to cut. They were my precious words. Who cares if this intimate scene between two characters does nothing to hurry along the plot or their character arcs? It’s a lovely scene! 

I came to realise such scenes detracted from the story as a whole, so I learnt to cut the fluff. I also learnt to tighten my writing. It’s deeply satisfying to shave a few hundred words off my word count by deleting filler words like “just” and yet somewhat embarrassing so many ended up in my manuscript in the first place. Personal dialogue tics bled into my characters. Like me, they’d start sentences with “well,” which made everyone sound oddly similar. Passive voice instances were rewritten (by zombies) – tip: if you can put “by zombies” after the verb, it’s passive voice – and adverbs were scrutinised and swept away (I love Linguistic Focus mode in Scrivener). 

Another thing I noticed was the clunky way I wrote when a POV character saw or heard something, e.g.

“Adam saw the moonlight filter through the bare trees. Somewhere ahead, he heard a vixen scream.”

As someone who writes 1st person or deep 3rd, it’s obvious which POV we’re in. 

“Moonlight filtered through the bare trees. Ahead, a vixen screamed.”

This works because the reader already knows who is doing the seeing and hearing. It reads better, and it’s helped shave a few extra words off, which means I can add more important stuff to the story – unless I’m trying to reduce the word count. 

Now, I prepare for querying. The first three chapters are as good as they can be. The synopsis is down, and I’m making a nice big list of agents to query. 

On Art

It’s wintertime and my palette has switched to cool, muted colours. I like how the seasons and changeable weather set the vibe in my art. I did try to paint a summery seascape yesterday, but it felt forced. Whereas painting a moody storm over a wintery sea came easily because I’m channelling what’s outside right now. 

Watch this space though, I have news to bring you soon. 

On Photography

The camera is always with me when I go out for a long stank (walk – it’s a Cornish thing). I like to take the walk along the estuary and over the sand dunes to see what mood the sea is in today. Yes, a calm sea on an idyllic warm summer’s day is appealing, but I do love a dark, steel-blue sea under storm clouds. And I do love the winter light. 


What creative things have you been up to? Does winter change them in any way? Let me know in the comments. 

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